Chips, Bits, and the Law: An Economic Geography of Internet Gambling

Abstract

Online gambling offers valuable insights into the relationship between real and virtual places. Gambling in most countries is highly regulated, with its geography reflecting the licensing of gambling to specific activities and locations. The ability to use the Internet challenges the legal foundation for gambling by offering access in an efficient and private way from distant locations. The heaviest concentration of gambling websites is found in North America and the Caribbean, with the leading locations for gambling-domain-name registrations being the United States, Canada, Antigua and Barbuda, Costa Rica, the United Kingdom, and St Kitts and Nevis. In this paper I explore the location and operation of Internet-gambling websites, with emphasis on the legal and economic geography of this activity.

The geographies of the internet

“…Capitalizing on an ability to conduct geographic arbitrage, in other words, locating in hospitable or indifferent regulatory environments, can be an attractive proposition. Wilson (2003) and Zook (2003) have identified the Caribbean and Eastern Europe as important nodes in the economic geography of Internet gambling and pornography, respectively. Thus, the Internet has both increased the ability for isolated businesses or individuals to access (and be accessed by) the rest of the world and also strengthened the ability of organizations (although not always those in the mainstream) to extend the scope and reach of their markets and consumption.…”

Problem Gambling

“…Much recent research has explored the way in which the increasing significance of Internet gambling creates new kinds of geographical questions about the location of gambling. Wilson (2003), for instance, has examined the economic geography of Internet gambling, focusing specifically on how the Internet and now mobile telecommunications are changing the accessibility and availability of gambling opportunities and yet the latter remain embedded in place-based regulatory, fiscal and technical regimes. So, for example, off-shore gambling websites may, for legal and financial reasons, be located in the Caribbean yet present themselves at the point of sale as based just down the road from the consumer.…”

Digitalização, globalização e capital financeiro hipermóvel

“…Alguns OFCs existem em grande parte como paraísos fiscais, permitindo que indivíduos e corporações ricas escapem de impostos de renda, de herança e de consumo em seus países de origem. Além disso, o jogo na Internet, com uma geografia de legalidade altamente desigual, floresce em Antígua (Wilson, 2003). Alguns OFCs são residência de falsificadores digitais.…”